hears my take on live rock...the better the live rock is, the shorter the cycle is, i could be wrong, but so far i have found that the people that use base rock or real cheap live rock, are the people that will tell you it will take at least 4 weeks or more to cycle. the ones that will say, my tank cycled in 3 days or a week or something like that, have not skimped on rock and picked out some real good colorfull rock with lots of beneficial bacterias and life already on the rock. that will help knock out ammonia and trites, and sometimes trates before they even start to show on tests (just talking about trates not showing on tests). the more water volume (tank size) and rock you have, the more stable the system will be. be sure to get a fuge and not a wet/dry. dont put plants (chaeto) in the fuge until the trites have come back down, plants dont like trites. once down, then put chaeto and maybe even mangroves if trates are still present. i am still learning all this, so look for backup on what i am saying, but this is what i have found so far. my tank cycled in about a week with primo indo pacific live rock. i cant even count all the featherdusters and other weird life on this rock. i have 5 fish and 9 or 10 pieces of coral in my tank and i am not at 4 weeks yet (.... flame time) and all my levels are right where they need to be (thank goodness!!!!) i am by no means saying it is ok to add lots of stuff before 4 weeks. i am just saying that good live rock is worth getting!! my rock alone was about $1000, but worth every penny.
